Brands
Davidoff
The story of Davidoff begins in a Geneva shop: in 1911, the Davidoff family, who had emigrated from the Russian Empire, opened their tobacco business, where son Zino grew into arguably the most influential cigar retailer of the twentieth century. Zino Davidoff set standards far beyond his own trade — from climate-controlled storage to the idea of naming cigar lines like great wines: his Château series carried the names of the Bordeaux estates.
In 1968, in collaboration with the Cuban state enterprise Cubatabaco, an independent Habano brand Davidoff was created; from 1970 the Basel family company Oettinger continued the brand alongside Zino. In 1990 came the break with Cuba — since then Davidoff cigars have been produced in the Dominican Republic, a decision that definitively established the reputation of Dominican manufacturing.
The house’s style is considered the embodiment of cultivated mildness: precise construction, refined, well-balanced Ligadas, elegance rather than force — though lines such as the Davidoff Nicaragua deliberately reach for more powerful registers. Among the well-known series are Grand Cru, Aniversario, the Millennium series and the Winston Churchill line. The brand is still managed today by Oettinger Davidoff in Basel — a Swiss family company with a Dominican heart.